East Memphis mom, teen charged with shooting of teen's stepfather

An East Memphis teen stood alone in court Thursday afternoon, accused of shooting his stepfather in the face at the behest of his mother, and asked to explain his actions.

"Permission to speak?" the 16-year-old said, while raising his right hand in a rare move during his first appearance before a Shelby County Juvenile Court magistrate since his arrest Wednesday night.

Magistrate Felicia Hogan told the teen he would have to remain jailed since she found probable cause he shot the victim, Stephen Houston, 58. Before being transported to a hospital in critical condition, Houston told police that just after 4 p.m. he had been shot by his stepson inside the family's home, in the 500 block of Estridge.

The judge also explained to the teen that this wasn't the time for her to make a final determination of guilt or innocence.

The teen's attorney, Kim Meloni, quickly turned to her client, advising him to keep quiet. As the teen whispered to her, she told him: "We'll talk about that at trial."

Prosecutor Mark Erskine told the judge he will request to transfer the teen to adult court for trial on the felony charge of aggravated assault.

Outside court, Meloni said her client — who has no criminal history — wanted the judge to know his version of events: that he didn't shoot to kill and was instead acting in self-defense.

"He was scared, very afraid," the attorney said. "He knew his dad had a gun and that his dad, who had been a Marine, said he knew how to kill with his hands."

Investigators interviewed the mother, Leslie Mann-Houston, 40, and son and said there were no prior domestic violence incidents between them and the victim. Police haven't said what sparked Wednesday's domestic dispute.

When police arrived, they found the victim leaning over the kitchen sink, holding his face, with some teeth missing from the gun blast. When officers found his wife standing in the living room, she pointed to the bathroom, where police found her son, according to police reports.

The teen's mother told police her son heard the argument in the couple's bedroom, saw her husband pushing her and told her husband to leave her alone.

She said her 285-pound husband then turned toward her son and attempted to fight him, causing her much smaller son to pick up a gun that had been lying on the bed and fire, according to the incident report. The teen claims he had told his stepfather to get back, but the man kept coming toward him.

Police believe there's more to the story — that the teen followed his mother's orders to fetch a black handgun out of his mother's purse, according to an affidavit. So investigators also charged the teen's mother with aggravated assault.

According to his attorney, the teen claims his stepfather lunged at him, at which point he fired one shot, striking the man in the right side of his face.

The mother was jailed with bond set at $85,000. Her court hearing is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Friday.